With technological advances in modern medicine, digital imaging data processing has become integral in diagnostic and research efforts. Digital imaging is used in many fields of medicine and encompasses a large number of medical imaging modalities (e.g., computed tomography, magnetic resonance, ultrasound, positron emission tomography and digital radiography). Until relatively recently, manufacturers of imaging devices and technology used proprietary image format and communication protocols. Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (“DICOM”) created a standard for radiology imaging and communication. Since then, DICOM has dominated the field of radiology imaging and all major manufacturers conform to this standard. The DICOM standard has two major areas of focus: the data format and the communication/message protocol to exchange DICOM objects. Recently, DICOMWEB, a web standard for radiological imaging and communication, has been introduced and become the standard way to enable access to DICOM objects over the Internet.
Medical information and data, such as for example DICOM objects, are stored in a (network) file system provided by an operating system. In certain circumstances, doctors and other medical professionals may need to access relevant medical data from multiple file systems pertaining, for example, to data collected as part of a research study. Often, medical data across multiple systems may use different patient identifiers for identification of the same patient. However, to be useful, medical information pertaining to patient data must be modified and integrated into a universal worklist where all of the patient's medical information from various systems is accessible.
The majority of reports produced by diagnostic medical imaging modalities are structured. A structured report is the optimal form of documentation in computerized systems as it allows searching, storage and comparison with similar data elements. Consequently, DICOM structured report increases the efficiency of the distribution of information between various specialties such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, etc. In many cases, information contained in structured reports must be read and modified and in certain circumstances, transformation, routing and archiving rules may require accessing data from a DICOM data object and/or from a DICOM structured report.
With the changes in DICOM standards, radiological images and corresponding data may need to be migrated in order to meet current standards. Data migration may be a costly and time-consuming process, often requiring development of a customized software for the migration. This customized solution in turn may present additional challenges. For example, maintaining and upgrading customized software may be cumbersome and costly. As well as ensuring compatibility with industry standard protocols, such as HL7, DICOM, XDS-I, XML and SNMP, QIDO-RS, WADO-RS, STOW-RS, FHIR and/or other protocols which may not always be followed may result in additional support issues.
Therefore, there is a need for a user-configurable radiological data transmission, routing, and archiving engine that provides for integration of patient radiological data into a universal worklist, migration of radiological data to current standards, and user-configurable transformation, routing and archiving of radiological data.